Story of the Phantom (18 page)

As he entered the cave, he instinctively looked for his beautiful mother. She had always been waiting there for him, just inside the entrance, out of the hot sun. He realized with a sickening feeling that she was no longer there. How long ago had she died? Five, six years? There had been that letter. He ran out, past the chamber of costumes and the Chronicles, past the major and minor treasure rooms with their glittering contents ("A whole roomful?" Uncle Ephraim had said, looking at the handful of jewels.) Now he reached the large rocky chamber where his father lay on a pile of furs. Two pygmies sat near him. They rose when Kit entered and quickly left.

His father was clad only in a loincloth. His chest, legs, arms, shoulder and forehead were wrapped in white bandages, covering more than a dozen wounds. His eyes were closed as Kit approached him.

"Father," he said.

The Twentieth opened his eyes. He had been expecting his son and was not surprised. He looked up

87

at him, at this son grown to powerful young manhood. He smiled faintly, and in a soft voice said words uttered by parents in all ages.

"How you have grown."

Kit remembered the mighty body of his father from the days of swimming on the beaches of Keela-Wee and Eden, and from dips in jungle pools. Now, the attrition of his deadly battles was evident. He had lost weight, and the movement of his hand was slow and weak as he touched Kit's arms, Kit sat beside him.

"You're going to get well, father," he said. His father shook his head. Again his deep voice was faint so that Kit leaned forward to hear him better.

"I'm living on borrowed time. Axel predicted I'd be gone by now. I fooled him." He laughed softly, an effort that turned into a wracking cough. Kit took his hand.

"Kit I am dying. I stayed alive to see you. There is not much time. Remember the Oath?"

Kit nodded, pressing his father's hand.

"Yes," he said, "I remember."

His father began the Oath of the Skull, pausing after each phrase so that Kit might repeat it.

"I swear to devote my life to the destruction of piracy, greed, cruelty and injustice, and my sons and their sons shall follow me."

That done, the Twentieth raised his left hand weakly.

"The rings, Kit."

Kit hesitated.

"Are you certain, father?" he asked. The rings were the final step.

"The rings," said his father, his voice more urgent and hurried now.

Kit removed the ring from the left hand and gave it to his father. Trembling, the father placed it on the ring finger of Kit's left hand.

"For the protection of good people," he whispered, fighting for breath. "The other."

He could no longer raise his hands. Kit removed the ring from the right hand. This was the death's-head ring, bearing the skull, the ancient symbol of the Phantom, known to all the jungle folk, to pirates of the seven seas, and to evil doers everywhere.

With Kit's help, his father slipped the skull ring onto his right hand.

"The ring of the Oath, Kit. Be faithful to it."

"I will be faithful to it."

"You know the rest-the mask-" began his father.

88

Kit bent low, speaking near his father's ear, "The mask for secrecy," he answered.

"The treasure."

"The treasure, used only for the good," he answered.

"The Chronicles."

"It will be written."

Kit was repeating the words he had learned as a child. His father's hand suddenly grasped his, desperately.

"Kit, your mother missed you so much-wanted to see you once more-must wait-now-"

He was struggling to say something else. His body trembled with the effort, and his hoarse whisper was so soft Kit could barely hear him.

"Kit, there will be good times-and bad times-"

Kit waited for more, his ear near his father's lips, but there was no more. A rush of breath, his hand relaxed. Breathing stopped. He was dead.

Kit lowered his head and sat in silence. Guran had said, "He said he will wait for you. He wills it."

He was right. Such was the strength of this amazing man. By some mysterious force in him, he had held off death long enough to see his son. He had willed it so.

Kit sat for some time in meditation next to his father in the flickering light of the torches set in the rocky walls. Then, from the early training, he knew what was required. He picked up his father and carried him to that musty cool chamber called the Crypt. He must do this alone, for that was the tradition of his ancestors. The chamber was lined with their vaults, from the First to the Nineteenth.

Next to the latter was the undated tablet, the Twentieth. Near it on the floor was a stone box containing old iron tools. When had his father put that there? With the tools, he removed the undated tablet. Behind it was a metal casket. When had his father obtained that? It was the morbid task of each Phantom to select and install his own casket. Kit removed the casket, and carefully placed his father in it. He bent down and kissed the still-warm cheek, and memories of this patient generous man flooded his eyes with tears.

"Good-bye father," he whispered.

He replaced the metal cover and slowly returned the casket to its niche in the wall. Then, the next duty. Among the iron tools were a hammer and chisel. This was also his task, since none but the Phantom or his family could enter the Crypt. After marking numerals on the tablet with a crayon also found in the stone box, he began to chisel slowly and carefully: Below, the Twentieth, the years of his birth and death. That done, he hammered the tablet into place. After sweeping the floor and replacing the tools, he wearily surveyed his work. Now, the ancient line stretched from the First to the Twentieth. Twenty generations of bold unselfish men who had dedicated their lives to the fight against evil, and to promote the good. Now that he knew the outside world and had studied the past, Kit realized that this Phantom line was unique and without a parallel anywhere that he knew in the entire history of mankind. His sadness was replaced by pride as he looked at the vaults. "My family,"

he thought. "I am one of them."

89

He looked again at the freshly chiseled plaque covering his father's vault. Next to it was another undated plaque. That would be his someday. The Twenty-first. That was an odd thought. But it did not disturb him. To youth, as to soldiers going into battle, death is for other people.

Now he stepped out of the vault to the room of costumes, as was prescribed. There, on a stone bench, was a costume waiting for him, mask, hood, tights, trunks, gun- belt, and guns. How long had this been waiting for him? He put on the outfit. It fit. He almost smiled at that. Through the years in America, his parents had asked him to write his height and weight each year, so they could follow the growth of their absent son. It was a sentimental request. With those annual reports and photographs they felt closer to the development of their child as he grew to manhood. But in the last years, it had a practical use as well. The costume fit.

He often wondered about this particular costume. It seemed unsuited for the jungle. His father explained. The First had created the costume to fit the superstitious image of a certain avenging spirit that people of the jungle and coast believed in, in that era. The fear his appearance created helped him in his battle against the wild barbarism and savagery of his time. His son and those that followed continued the use of the same costume, and the legend of immortality started, that he was always the same man. That too was a major aid in the single-handed struggle against evil.

By the light of a burning torch, he looked at his image in the long metal mirror that had been his mother's. His appearance surprised and almost shocked him. Until one looked very closely, he looked just like his father. Roughly the same size, and the same outline. He picked up the two guns.

They had been his father's. Beautiful polished deadly weapons. How soon would he have to use them, he wondered? A fleeting thought crossed his mind. Of those bandits who had attacked Father Morra's missionary school-the battle that caused his father's death-six had been overcome, but six had escaped by fleeing into the jungle. They must be found and brought to justice. He put the guns in the holsters, then drew quickly, as he had practiced so many times. He knew his life might depend on the quickness of that draw. Replacing the guns, he walked to the next chamber containing the Chronicles.

Here, torches burned. A large new volume lay on the podium near the shelves of the volumes containing all the adventures of twenty Phantoms. He opened the new volume. The pages were blank.

There was a quill pen and a small container of ink made of wild berries. He wrote the date at the top of the page and made his first entry.

"June 17: Today, my father died of wounds suffered at the hands of bandits who had attacked Father Mona's missionary hospital. He killed or wounded six. Six escaped. It will be my purpose to capture those six as soon as possible and see that they are properly punished by law."

He walked slowly through the treasure rooms. The "minor" treasure room heaped with jewels and gold. How Uncle Ephraim would love to see this! Then the major treasure room with its priceless objects of antiquity. He picked up the heavy glittering cup of Alexander, carved from a single giant diamond. He smiled, remembering how he had dropped it and his father's anger; and his father's description of Alexander. "Some call him Great." He had been in these rooms a thousand times. But now it all seemed different. The responsibility for all this was now his.

He knew the Bandar were waiting outside for him. He walked back through the vast cave, stopping once more at the Crypt. He stood there in silence. For a fleeting moment, he had the strange impression that a host of smiling masked faces looked down upon him from the walls and ceiling. A whisper seemed to come from them, and it echoed and re-echoed in the rocky chamber.

"Welcome. We trust you."

90

He shook himself. The faces were gone. Imagination is a strange thing. But he looked proudly at the line of vaults, from the First to the Twentieth.

"I will do my best," he said.

And he walked slowly out of the cave where a hundred torches burned, to where the gathered Bandar awaited him.

CHAPTER 17

As he stepped into the torchlight, a roar came from the pygmies. Every man, woman, and child of the tribe of pygmies was there.

"The Phantom is dead. Long live the Phantom," they cried, using the ancient formula a long-dead Phantom had taught them. The smiling little people crowded about him to touch him. They had all loved his father. But there was no more sadness. These jungle people lived close to the earth and to the eternal cycles of life and death and the renewal of life in all living things. So there was no sadness. Their old friend was gone, but he had returned young and strong again. Now Kit realized the wisdom and importance of the Phantom costume. He was accepted without question, receiving all the acclaim and honors his ancestors had earned before him. It was his duty to uphold this honor.

He walked slowly to the Skull Throne while the laughing little people swarmed about him. To them, life was normal and good again. The Phantom was back. He sat on the stone throne with its stone skull carved on either side. This throne symbolized his role in the jungle as Keeper of the Peace. And on occasion, the tribal chiefs would gather here to discuss their problems with him or to settle disputes. But no Phantom had ever attempted to rule, and was not regarded as a ruler by any of the jungle folk. He was their ancient friend, whose only mission was to help bring peace among the perpetually warring tribes, and to help punish evildoers.

"Phantom, Phantom," the Bandar shouted, as they prepared a great feast in the clearing before the throne. Their shouts could be heard even beyond the roaring waterfall, and careless jungle folk who had wandered too close to the Deep Woods left hurriedly, wondering what strange ceremony was occurring among the pygmy poison people.

As he watched the preparations for the feast-which included the carcass of a small elephant and would go on for a week-images were racing through his mind. Clarksville, Harrison, Diana. Kit Walker Day. What had happened at the stadium? He would ask Diana someday, for he intended to see her again as soon as he could. But not as Kit Walker.

Now as he sat on the ancient Skull Throne, the seat of his ancestors, with the Bandar cries of

"Phantom, Phantom," ringing in his ears, he was no longer Kit Walker, the Harrison phenomenon.

That Kit Walker was gone, dead. He had become nameless, or many-named. For men of many nations would use many names for him in their own tongues, some of them unprintable. He would move in the shadows, his face never to be seen again except by his wife and the children of his blood.

His would be a life of mystery and danger, and he was to create terror in evildoers and happiness for people of goodwill. And he would work alone, for this was the Phantom credo. The Ghost Who Walks. The Man Who Cannot Die.

A dozen little hands pulled him from the throne to the waiting feast. And what a feast! The pygmies

91

had labored over it, and expended the energy of the whole tribe to gather and prepare it. Some was cooked, some raw, some skinned, some unskinned, some with feathers or scales intact; animals, fish, and fowl. And there were roots, herbs, nuts, and berries. The pièce de resistance, placed directly before Kit, was a hulking portion of elephant meat, half scorched for his benefit. It had been a major triumph for the little people to kill this monster, and it was a special treat for their guest of honor. He realized that this was his first chore, and it was not an easy one. Like Aunt Bessie so far away, they'd be unhappy if he didn't eat.

He looked at the mountain of rancid flesh before him. There was no escape. All eyes were watching him. There were no knives and forks here. He reached forward and ripped off a greasy morsel. They waited. He looked around at the rows of anxious little faces. Like hosts everywhere, they were awaiting his verdict.

"Here goes," he thought to himself, and holding his breath, began to chew.

That was a signal for happy bedlam among the Bandar.

They danced arid shouted.

"Phantom, Phantom. Long live the Phantom."

"Not for long, if I have to eat like this," he thought. There'll be some changes made in the menus of the Deep Woods. Still watching him, the pygmies began to gorge themselves. He took another deep breath, held it, and began chewing the greasy tough chunk again.

His father's last words had been: "There will be good times and bad times."

"I wonder which he would call this," he thought, grinning. But as he looked around at the friendly faces, so happy to please him and so happy to be with him, he knew the answer. He was home again.

92